International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

Women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization: patterns and trends

Vanessa Ratten, Kayhan Tajeddini,
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Women’s
Women’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship
internationalization: patterns
and trends
Vanessa Ratten
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and
Received 1 January 2018
Kayhan Tajeddini Revised 10 March 2018
11 March 2018
Department of Strategy, Tokyo International University, Kawagoe, Japan Accepted 11 March 2018
Downloaded by University of Sussex Library At 01:31 09 August 2018 (PT)

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on women’s entrepreneurship and
internationalization in order to build an understanding about future trends. There is increasing interest in the role
of women in entrepreneurship yet little research has been conducted about the link to internationalization patterns.
Design/methodology/approach – The literature is reviewed based on a systematic analysis of the words
women, female, gender and internationalization.
Findings – Three main schools of thought around women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization
(philosophy, management and motivations) are then discussed. The analysis of literature and classification into
main theories enables the building of new research around women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization.
Originality/value – There is a pipeline of women intending to become entrepreneurs so this paper helps to
understand how women entrepreneurs influence internationalization patterns and how to help support
women in their business endeavors.
Keywords Women, Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Internationalization, Female entrepreneurship
Paper type Literature review

Introduction
Entrepreneurship plays a fundamental and dominant role in many developed and emerging
economies (Ramaswamy, 2013). Increasingly, there is more interest in women entrepreneurs
who contribute to the economic and social fabric of the international business community
(Brush et al., 2010). Whilst the evolution of women entrepreneurial activity in the last few
years has been a crucial element in the economic and social development of many nations
(Noguera et al., 2013), there is a lack of a coherent framework and inconsistent research
about the internationalization perspective on women entrepreneurship. This has led to there
being a number of different methodological and theoretical perspectives about the role of
gender and entrepreneurship (Henry et al., 2015). Whilst the concept of internationalization
has been initiated before in international entrepreneurship (e.g. Etemad, 2015; Kraus et al.,
2016), the pace has not kept up to date with women entrepreneur’s involvement in the
process of internationalization.
Given the paucity of research on women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization, it is
important to understand the patterns and trends and there needs to be more of an
understanding about the differences in the number of women entrepreneurs in developed,
developing and emerging countries due to cultural and societal restrictions. This is because
the cultural context of a country shapes people’s perceptions about women entrepreneurs
( Jennings and Brush, 2013). Moreover, whilst the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report is
starting to focus more on women’s entrepreneurship as a driver of international growth, there
is still a lack of understanding about how women compared to men internationalize their
business operations (Kelley, 2017). This has led to suggestions that some countries are more
conducive to women’s entrepreneurship due to societal conditions (Minniti and Naudé, 2010). International Journal of Sociology
and Social Policy
Aidis et al. (2007) state that internationalization involves the interaction among various © Emerald Publishing Limited
0144-333X
economic, institutional and transitional factors, which may influence the development of DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-01-2018-0001
 IJSSP women’s entrepreneurship. International business researchers (e.g. Bullough, 2013; Etemad,
2015; Kraus et al., 2016; Ramaswamy, 2013; Tajeddini et al., 2017) have been interested in the
role of women in society mainly because of changing gender stereotypes and more
importance placed on gender equity. It is now becoming more apparent in the international
business world that entrepreneurship needs to focus on both men and women entrepreneurs
as there are gender differences in behavior that need to be taken into account. Therefore,
by focusing on entrepreneurship from a gender perspective, it enables a more detailed
analysis of women entrepreneurs in the global economy. This is supported by Berger and
Kuckertz (2016, p. 5163) who state “increased levels of female entrepreneurship can
contribute to a higher quality of entrepreneurship through conferring greater diversity.”
Existing studies of women entrepreneurship in internationalization (e.g. Nissan et al., 2012)
have tended to focus on business activities rather than the role of gender. In addition,
most of the international business literature has devoted attention to the type of business
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founded by women rather than the impact women have on internationalization rates (Berger
and Kuckertz, 2016).
Despite the interest in women entrepreneurs, there is still a paucity of research about
how they differ to male entrepreneurs and their influences in the global economy (Ahl, 2006).
This has led to there being unexplored opportunities to draw on the women’s
entrepreneurship literature to understand the internationalization process. Hodges et al.
(2015) highlight how the masculine focus of academic entrepreneurial studies has limited the
available research on women’s entrepreneurship. Therefore, current research about
internationalization might have a gender bias that assumes a male perspective without
taking into account women entrepreneurs (Al-Dajani and Marlow, 2010; Baughn et al., 2006).
Often women entrepreneurs disregard issues about their gender that do influence business
success rates (Achtenhagen and Welter, 2011). This has made some women entrepreneurs
try to downplay their gender because they consider the term “entrepreneur” as gender
neutral (Lewis, 2006). This is similar to the term “internationalization” tending to be generic
but arguably the motivations and assumptions behind it depends on cultural and societal
conditions. Moreover, entrepreneurship is linked to innovation due to its impact on job
creation and is often considered a precursor to successful internationalization rates.
Internationalization is a topic that is broad and dynamic in meaning (Turunen and
Nummela, 2017). More research on internationalization is incorporating other discipline
perspectives as a way to better understand its processes. There has been a globalization of
markets that has increased interest in international entrepreneurship and influenced the
development of new interdisciplinary research (Kiss et al., 2012). Moreover, there are a
number of theories explaining the internationalization process including evolutionary,
knowledge, learning, network, resource and transactional costs (Rialp et al., 2005). The main
internationalization theory, however, is the Uppsala model of internationalization, which
highlights that there is an interaction amongst stakeholders that influence the rate of
market expansion ( Johanson and Vahlne, 2009). The process or stages models of
internationalization such as the Uppsala model suggest that firms slowly increase their
commitments in international markets. Normally having a prior commitment to
internationalize will influence future intents to internationalize. To develop international
business relationships, there needs to be a commitment to acquiring market knowledge
(Chetty and Eriksson, 2002). As individuals become more trusting of business partners, they
are likely to engage with them in the international markets.
Turunen and Nummela (2017) argue that the entrepreneur’s global mindset to be a key
driver of successful internationalization. A global mindset includes the personal
characteristics of an entrepreneur that have an influence on the internationalization of a
firm ( Jones et al., 2011). Similarly, Javidan et al. (2010) find that success in global business
hinges on a global mindset comprising three intellectual capital, psychological capital and
 social capital. Notably, women entrepreneurs have entrepreneurial capabilities that are Women’s
embedded in their individuality personalities that affect the internationalization process. entrepreneurship
This includes prior exposure to foreign cultures or being part of a certain ethnic group
(Nummela et al., 2004). For example, language skills are considered useful for having a
cultural awareness of other cultures. In international markets, language capabilities can
help recognize and exploit market opportunities (Hurmerinta et al., 2015). Language also
helps individuals build networks that enable access to international markets.
Entrepreneurs utilize their networks to acquire information that impacts on future
internationalization actions. Fletcher and Barrett (2001) highlight how global networks
facilitate the evolution of firms. Networks facilitate internationalization as they enable
individuals to establish market positions. Entrepreneurs utilize networks in international
markets as a strategic resource (Ruzzier et al., 2006). This enables entrepreneurship to be
across borders as a way to facilitate the flow of information in different business
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environments. Women entrepreneurs utilize networks in different ways in order to help

establish market positions.
Networks can be seen as social, institutional, technological, regional and/or virtual
(Turunen and Nummela (2017). Networks are part of entrepreneurship but women have
tended not to be engaged in them (Brush, 1992). Arguably, this might be negative factor
affecting the success of some women entrepreneurs who focus more on the business rather
than networking. However, networks are important for internationalization as they help
with the acquisition of knowledge that can assist women entrepreneurs (Aldrich et al., 1987).
Women entrepreneurs are motivated to internationalize in order to compete with other
firms. In addition, more women entrepreneurs are seeking to internationalize at an earlier
stage of their businesses development. This helps reduce the risk of a business being too
reliant on domestic markets. Women entrepreneurs can also accelerate their
internationalization process by tapping into new skills, motivated by the increase in
growth opportunities coming from international environments.
This paper seeks to explore whether women entrepreneurs act differently in the
international arena. The introduction of a female narrative into the research about
international business and entrepreneurship makes a unique contribution to scholarship by
taking a more diverse point of view. Following this introduction, the importance of women
entrepreneurs in the global economy is discussed. The research methodology is then
explained in terms of the systematic literature review process. Next, the three main themes
of women’s entrepreneurship in internationalization are stated. The subsequent sections
discuss limitations and suggest future research agendas. Finally, practical and policy
implications are stated in terms of how this paper contributes to the increased interest of
women entrepreneurs in the international environment.

Literature review
Women’s entrepreneurship
While there is a lack of consistency about the definition of entrepreneurship possibly because
of cultural differences (Brush and Gatewood, 2008), entrepreneurship is conceived as the
exploitation of opportunities to introduce new products and ways of organizing (Di Gregorio
et al., 2008). Humbert and Drew (2010, p. 176) see an entrepreneur as individuals who create a
new business from scratch. Women entrepreneurs can be distinguished from business people
due to their ability to start and run a business venture. The main focus of women’s
entrepreneurship research is on understanding the reasons why women start their own
businesses. There has been increased interest in having equal numbers of women and men in
traditionally male occupations like engineering and technology. It has been estimated that
approximately 30 percent of all small enterprises worldwide are owned by women
(Hodges et al., 2015). This indicates that there is more acknowledgment of the need to foster
 IJSSP women entrepreneurs due to their ability to increase employment (de Bruin et al., 2007).
Hanson (2009) states that the world of paid work continues to be a place where traditional
power relations and meanings of gender are contested and changed. Whilst there is growing
international awareness of the need to help minority entrepreneurs like women, there is still a
bias toward males in much of the international business and entrepreneurship research.
Women often start a business as a way to gain more control over their work/life balance
(Hodges et al., 2015). Starting a business provides some women more flexibility and
independence in their work life. In addition, there has been an increased interest in women
starting businesses particularly when they are raising children. These women have been
referred to as “mumpreneurs” as they are not only mothers but also entrepreneurs (Duberley
and Carrigan, 2013). Mumpreneurs can generate income for their family whilst managing
career and motherhood. Humbert and Drew (2010) discuss how women’s role in the labor
market is changing due to an increase in women with children having part time employment.
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Moreover, Petridou and Glaveli (2008) assert that there are pull and push factors
influencing women entrepreneurs. On the one hand, pull factors normally focus on the
need to earn money forcing women to start their own business. Other pull factors include
boredom or wanting a change. On the other hand, push factors relate more to recognizing
opportunities and then starting a business. Women entrepreneurs tend to be younger
and more educated than male entrepreneurs (Humbert and Drew, 2010). More women are
pulled into entrepreneurship due to the increased social status from being an
entrepreneur. Fielden and Dawe (2004) find that the attitudes of women’s partner
influence whether they become and stay an entrepreneur. In addition, some women see
starting a business as a way to have financial independence (Tajeddini et al., 2017).
Entrepreneurship helps women find their own professional identity and gives them
recognition in the workforce (Petridou and Glaveli, 2008). Both the push and pull factors
are influenced by the international business environment.
Gender relations are a way of understanding power differences based on biological sex
and are important to understanding international business practices. Bruni et al. (2004,
p. 406) state that “traditional literature and research on entrepreneurship relies on a model of
economic rationality allege to be universal and agendered.” In the past, the entrepreneurship
and international business literature focused on processes rather than gender elements but
this has changed in recent years with the increased interest in women entrepreneurs.
The concept of gender is fluid with the recognition that characteristics associated with
females such as nurturing can also apply to males. Humbert and Drew (2010) argue that the
results of previous research regarding the relationship and gender are inconclusive and in
some extent contradictory, mainly because of employing different methodology and/or
discipline bases. This implies that there needs to be more understanding about how gender
impacts business decisions and more specifically in terms of women entrepreneurship
and internationalization.
Gender is culturally defined and impacts entrepreneurial behavior (Apergis and
Economou, 2010). This is influenced by how a country perceives the role of women in the
workplace and associated gender relations. Brush et al. (2010) argue how women
entrepreneurs need to be aware of the role gender plays in business and leadership.
Nightingale (2006) views gender as the process through which differences are perceived and
analyzed based on presumed biological sex and this definition of gender is adopted in this
paper. Whilst we take a biological perspective of gender, the concept of gender is evolving
due to its malleability and reliance on context for understanding its meaning (Hanson, 2009).
This is supported by De Bruin et al. (2007) who discuss how the motivations to start a
business seems to be gender neutral but the experiences differ.
Arguably, the gender of an entrepreneur needs to be taken into account when conducting
research on the topic. Research shows that female entrepreneurs face different obstacles to
 men because of their gender. Whilst male entrepreneurs still dominate the entrepreneurship Women’s
literature, there has been an increase in interest about female entrepreneurs. Petriodou et al. entrepreneurship
(2009) note that gender perspective can be seen as an unconscious cognitive factor that
shapes values and behaviors through an interaction of biology and social influence. Thus,
often the gender dimensions important in the international business arena are forgotten due
to the emphasis on cultural differences rather than biological conditions.
There are gender differences in entrepreneurial activity that are further evident
between many developed and developing countries. Research conducted by Marlow and
Patton (2005) suggests that gender is a learned idea that limits women’s ability to
access resources needed for entrepreneurship. This has meant that gender is socially
constructed and influences the way women obtain funding. Women are considered in
many countries to still be less business savvy than men and might need credit histories or
further personal savings in order to access finance (Boden, 1999). Moreover, power
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relations based on gender influence entrepreneurial processes (Brush and Bird, 2002).
There has been a traditional view that entrepreneurs are males but over the last few years
this stereotype has changed with the increase in the number of women entrepreneurs.
Women-owned businesses are considered as one of the fastest growing forms of business
(Lewis, 2013).
Certain industries like the apparel have been associated with women managed
businesses and the majority of employees are women (Hodges et al., 2015). Some occupations
are stereotyped as female such as the service and retail sector. In society, there has been a
tendency to associate certain occupations with a particular gender. This stereotype is
evident in occupations involving maths and sciences that are considered more masculine
and the arts and humanities viewed as more feminine (Nosek et al., 2002). Women are
sometimes stereotyped as not having high energy and a risk taking propensity that is
needed in entrepreneurship (Sexton and Bowman-Upton, 1990). Whilst the notion of gender
is changing, there is still strong evidence to suggest that entrepreneurship is a gendered
process (Lewis, 2006).

Methodology
Research on women’s entrepreneurship has expanded with there being a large number of
different outlets for publications. Due to the increased interest on women’s
entrepreneurship, a systematic search of the literature was conducted in terms of its
effect on internationalization. The systematic search follows guidelines by Pittaway and
Cope (2007) that an analysis of the literature helps make entrepreneurship research more
transparent. The systematic literature review followed the approach suggested by Denyer
and Neely (2004) and Martineau and Pastoriza (2016). A document analysis using the
Thomson Reuters ISI and Scopus databases focused on women’s entrepreneurship and
internationalization using the social sciences as the research domain. Only peer-reviewed
journal articles were included as they are considered to have the most impact and
are more credible than other sources (Podsakoff et al., 2005). The focus of the search was
journal articles as they are validated knowledge due to the peer review process (Tranfield
et al., 2003). Other forms of research such as policy papers, book chapters and conference
presentations were excluded. The literature review contains articles up until July 2017.
A word search on the computer using the keywords women entrepreneurs and
internationalization was conducted. Linan and Fayolle (2015) highlight how systematic
literature reviews are important in the entrepreneurship literature to ensure transparent
and reliable research. Each of the articles found was analyzed by the authors to
see if it was in fact relevant to women entrepreneurship and internationalization.
Articles were removed that did not link to the topic of women entrepreneurship in an
international perspective.
 IJSSP The articles were reviewed for relevance to see that they had a substantial focus on
women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization. Articles were excluded when the data
were insufficient in terms of internationalization. Five articles were excluded from the review
because they did not discuss international aspects in detail. Articles focusing on a single
country were also excluded unless that there was a discussion about internationalization in
the paper. Finally, we excluded three articles that discussed other entrepreneurship areas such
as immigrant or social rather than focusing on internationalization issues.
Based on the search criteria, 232 articles were identified that focused both on women’s
entrepreneurship and internationalization. Most of the authors of the articles were from the
USA (31 percent), followed by the UK (12 percent) and Canada (10 percent). Other articles
had authors mostly from Europe such as Spain, Switzerland and Ireland. India was the
exception with authors from this country making a substantial contribution to the research
on women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization The articles with the most citations
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were Cliff (1998) who discusses the role of gender in the growth of international markets and
Fischer et al. (1993) who provide a theoretical overview of research on gender and
entrepreneurship that had an international orientation. These two most cited articles were
published in the 1990s but more recent research by Poggesil et al. (2015) is growing in terms
of citations.
The thematic analysis focused on the topics emerging from the most cited publications.
Ryan and Bernard (2003) propose that there are certain techniques that can be used to
identify themes. This includes focusing on the research aims and findings from each article.
The main themes emerging from each article help describe the subject material and issues
addressed. Linan and Fayolle (2015) propose using themes and sub-themes as a way to
understand the conceptual thinking and core arguments of a research topic. A content
analysis was conducted on the articles to identify main issues that were then classified into
three themes. Content analysis is a technique using a set of procedures that make inferences
from text (Weber, 1990). The articles were classified by themes in order to determine the
trends and the distribution of topics in the journals as suggested by Neuendorf (2002). There
were three people used in the content analysis of the articles. Each article was analyzed in
terms of themes then placed into one category.

Results and discussion

From the content analysis of the articles, three main themes emerged: philosophical
underpinnings, management and motivations. These themes were then analyzed in terms of
the link between women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization. The literature about
women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization is still unclear about the different
philosophies, management and motivations between male entrepreneurs. Each of these
themes will now be discussed.

Philosophical underpinnings ( feminist)

The philosophical underpinnings perspective of women’s entrepreneurship suggests that
there are gender characteristics that influence internationalization rates. There is a debate
about whether gender influences risk taking propensity and other traits associated with
entrepreneurship (Tipu, 2017). In a study of Dutch entrepreneurs, Verheul et al. (2009) found
females to be more risk averse. Similarly, another study by Yordanova and Boshnakova
(2011) showed that female Bulgarian entrepreneurs to have a lower risk propensity. This
contrasts with Tan (2008) who found Chinese female entrepreneurs are more risk taking.
This is supported by Majumdar and Varadarajan (2013) who found female business
students in United Arab Emirates had higher risk taking behavior. Thus, the international
environment is a plausible reason that may impact on whether women – due to their
gender – are able to engage in risk and thereby entering foreign markets.
 There are both formal and informal institutional influences on female entrepreneurship Women’s
(Aidis et al., 2007). The formal institutional influences include childcare programs, labor entrepreneurship
market regulations and financial considerations. Women can devote more time to
entrepreneurial business activities when they receive rebates or help from the government
with childcare. In addition, labor market regulations in terms of flexible work hours also
influence the number of women in business. Financial considerations are also important to
women entrepreneurs such as tax legislation. In a study about bank loan officer’s
perceptions of men and women, Buttner (1988) find that financial institutions tended to view
more favorably male entrepreneurs in lending decisions. This is also supported by
Carter et al. (2003) who find that women with more social capital are better able to access
equity financing. Informal institutional influences include attitudes toward work,
discrimination and family values.
Attitudes toward women entrepreneurs can take a positive, negative or neutral stance.
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Cliff et al. (2005) find that women with more confidence are likely to better perform in small
firms. Caputo and Dolinsky (1998) suggest that a women’s choice to be self-employed will
depend on the financial capital of household members. In some countries, there are more
favorable attitudes to women in business because of societal conditions. In Scandinavian
countries, for instance, there has been a tendency to view both male and females equally in
the workforce. Discrimination can occur in terms of attitudes toward the role of women in
work or because of stereotypes influencing work behavior. Gatewood et al. (2009) suggest
that women entrepreneurs have to be proactive in the marketplace and liken them to
hunters in finding business opportunities that come from entrepreneurial ideas. In addition,
religious beliefs may limit the roles women can take in business. Family values affect
women due to the role they have in the home. This has meant that more ambitious women
entrepreneurs tend to have a focus on high growth strategies that often center on
international markets (Gundry and Welsch, 2001).

Staring and managing a business

Women tend to evaluate whether to start a business based on personal reasons rather than
financial results (Moore and Buttner, 1997). Whilst globally most women entrepreneurs
share similar features there are cultural differences that need to be taken into account
(Poggesil et al., 2015). Some countries tend to have a higher number of women entrepreneurs
that influence their ability to enter the international market. However, women despite the
similarity in gender have individual characteristics that influence their ability to
internationalize their business. This includes diverse thoughts about the need or reason for
international market expansion that may depend on their country of origin. With the
increase in overall number of businesses having an international orientation, it is important
to consider how women entrepreneurs can succeed.
Humbert and Drew (2010) argue that women appear to rely heavily on cultural capital
such as educational level or experience. Cultural capital differs depending on the country
context with women in developed countries normally having greater access to education.
In addition, some cultures may have a better environment for women and encourage their
entrepreneurship (Verheul et al., 2006). This is evident in the USA with the high level of
tertiary educated women and entrepreneurship programs. Countries with higher economic
development rates tend to have higher levels of women entrepreneurs. For example,
Petridou and Glaveli (2008) find that some women entrepreneurs in Greece prefer to work in
teams and that have resulted in an increase in co-operative forms of business.

Motivations for entrepreneurship

Women are motivated to be entrepreneurs for both economic and social reasons. Brush et al.
(2009) propose the 5M framework for understanding women’s entrepreneurship that
 IJSSP includes money, market, management, motherhood and meso/macro environment. These
factors are an important way of understanding how women entrepreneurs’ internationalize
their business based on cultural and social conditions. In developed countries, it
seems/appears that women often observe entrepreneurship more as an opportunity rather
than a necessity. De Martino and Barbato (2003) find that females are more concerned with
family and lifestyle rather than just financial reasons. In addition, males are more likely than
females to become entrepreneurs in middle-income countries. The entrepreneurship
potential in women could be affected by the cultural conditions in a country. As societal
attitudes toward women in business change this enables more positive associations with
entrepreneurship to emerge.
While Orhan and Scott (2001) suggest that men and women in industrialized countries
have similar motivations such as self-achievement, empirical research indicates that
almost twice as many men as women become entrepreneurs in different countries
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(cf. Gupta et al., 2009).Women often start businesses that are smaller and slower growing
than males (Carter and Williams, 2003). In addition, it appears that women tend to be in
the service or retail sector rather than the technology sector (Gupta et al., 2009). Regional
trading blocs such as the European Union have influenced gender relations and the role of
women entrepreneurs in the global economy (Aidis et al., 2007). Women entrepreneurs
help reduce poverty levels by increasing economic growth and gender equality
(Maniyalath and Narendran, 2016). In developing countries, there has been a more evident
marginalization of women in the workforce. In some developing countries, women
entrepreneurs are changing society by starting businesses that influence community
practices. For example, this is evident in the rate of female total entrepreneurial activity
differs in countries with 1 percent in Pakistan to 40 percent in Zambia (Maniyalath and
Narendran, 2016). This contrasts with Hodges et al. (2015) who find women in Russia,
South Africa and Thailand form networks easily. Traditionally mathematics and
technology have been perceived to be masculine attributes and this impacts the type of
businesses women entrepreneurs start in more technologically advanced countries.
For example, Aidis et al. (2007) find that access to finance is an important barrier for
women entrepreneurs in Lithuania and Ukraine.

Implications for practice

For practitioners, this paper highlights the different reasons, women entrepreneurs
internationalize their business and how it is important to focus on motivations and
business attributes as part of the competitiveness process in the international
marketplace. Women entrepreneurs interested in international expansion should engage
in active networking and educational endeavors. This will enable women entrepreneurs to
discover international opportunities that can help them expand their business practices
(Tajeddini et al., 2017).
Women entrepreneurs should undergo cultural training through educational providers
such as universities and government entities to learn about how to internationalize. Industry
associations such as women’s networking groups should collaborate with educational
providers to support cross-cultural training programs. This is substantiated by Poggesil
et al. (2015) who suggest that there are new practical training programs being developed
specifically for women entrepreneurs that take into account their unique skill set and type of
business they are likely to be engaged in. Moreover, women entrepreneurs can form
alliances with networking bodies in other countries to help them internationalize.
Government agencies can facilitate these networking programs by providing funding to
women entrepreneurs who want to internationalize their business. Nissan et al. (2012)
suggest that a way to increase the level of women’s entrepreneurship in the international
market is for more attention to be placed on their innovative business models.
 Theory implications Women’s
In terms of theory, women entrepreneurship needs to link more with internationalization entrepreneurship
process theory to recognize the benefits of interdisciplinary research. Studying how women
entrepreneurs internationalize their business will provide richer insights into the
internationalization literature. Most of the current internationalization literature has
focused on a gender neutral view of entrepreneurship but this paper highlights that gender
does influence internationalization patterns. This study contributes to the literature by
showing how through internationalization women entrepreneurs manage their business
enterprises. In addition, as noted in the analysis of the published articles on women’s
entrepreneurship and internationalization, there needs to be more consideration of gender to
the effectiveness of the internationalization process. As Bullough (2013) suggests that there
is positive support for women entrepreneurs that need to be linked to the theories of this
literature review in terms of internationalization patterns. Future research should explore at
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what stage of the entrepreneurship process women entrepreneurs begin their

internationalization path. Furthermore, as stated by Noguera et al. (2013), there are
distinct socio-cultural factors that influence female entrepreneurship that needs to be
considered in terms of internationalization rates.
Furthermore, as noted by Wilson et al. (2009), there are different reasons for female
entrepreneurial interest and behavior that needs to be analyzed more in future research.
Extending internationalization literature beyond the realm of a gender neutral perspective
can help bring women’s entrepreneurship to the forefront. Based on the literature review
analysis presented in this paper, future research needs to extend women’s entrepreneurship
to more feminist perspectives that are evident in other disciplines. As stated by
Grosser (2016), there are unique feminist perspectives that impact corporate social
responsibility and multistakeholder governance, thus feminist perspectives being found in
the literature review of this paper could be linked more to these fields.

Policy implications
There are a number of policy implications coming from this study given the increased
attention placed on women’s entrepreneurship in the global economy. There needs to be
more recognition of the cultural and social factors affecting women being entrepreneurs
(Lewis, 2013). More funding and time needs to be spent on encouraging women to become
entrepreneurs in developing countries in order to increase gender equity and economic
growth. Previous research by Nissan et al. (2012) confirms the analysis of the current
literature in this paper that there are specific motivations women entrepreneurs have that
can be guided by policy initiatives. This includes focusing on the entrepreneurial-orientation
performance relationship to see how it differs between developed and developing countries
(Etemad, 2015).
International agencies that promote gender equality can utilize the findings of this
paper to help fund more initiatives related to women’s entrepreneurship. Previous
research by Kraus et al. (2016) has suggested that family firms are an important driver of
internationalization efforts, so it would help for governments to fund more women-led
family firms. As many women entrepreneurs have small- and micro-sized enterprises, it
would also be useful for governments to focus more on education around how to
increase internationalization rates. This is in line with suggestions by Javidan et al. (2010)
about the importance of managing one’s own enterprise in order to be successful in the
international marketplace.

Concluding comments
The growth of women entrepreneurship over the last 10 years has been dramatic. Women
entrepreneurship is expected to evolve to focus more on international markets due to
 IJSSP increased revenue opportunities. As there is growing body of literature about women’s
entrepreneurship and internationalization, it is beneficial to analyze the research conducted
up to now. The contents of the articles published in academic journals were analyzed to
understand the relationship between women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization.
The review of articles on women’s entrepreneurship and internationalization helps to see the
changes in research outputs. The main findings of this paper reveal that there are cultural
and social barriers affecting women entrepreneurs’ decision to internationalize.
The literature review in this paper analyzed the existing work on women’s
entrepreneurship and internationalization. This was useful in highlighting the need to
advance the field of women’s entrepreneurship by linking it to international business and
export studies. There are a number of pressing issues that need to be addressed in future
research. Linan and Fayolle (2015) in discussing the limitations of systematic literature
reviews discuss how there is subjectivity biases and a lag in publication impact that needs
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to be taken into account. This meant that most of the articles focused on business
management and perhaps did not capture articles from other disciplines.
To conclude, there needs to be more research about the link between women’s
entrepreneurship and internationalization patterns. Further thought is needed on how
women entrepreneurs can succeed in the international marketplace. Current thinking
about women’s entrepreneurship focuses on the gender differences but more thinking is
needed on the unique attributes of women that can be used in a beneficial way to increase
internationalization rates. Women entrepreneurs can influence how the internationalization
process unfolds by identifying specific international market opportunities. This will enable
international social networks to influence the likelihood of women entering new markets.
Women entrepreneurs with international market knowledge will be more likely to interact in
the international market. In addition, women with prior experience or cultural connections to
international markets will value more internationalization opportunities. Therefore, more
policy initiatives are needed to understand the impact of internationalization for women
entrepreneurs. This paper has highlighted how women entrepreneurs can start new
international ventures or internationalize existing businesses by focusing on market potential.

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Further reading
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Corresponding author
Vanessa Ratten can be contacted at: v.ratten@latrobe.edu.au

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